An activist organization has claimed to have harvested millions of tracks from the popular streaming service and is getting ready to release them publicly.
Possible Impetus for AI Training
Observers said the apparent data breach could aid AI companies searching for material to develop their models.
A group called Anna’s Archive said it had scraped 86 million music files from Spotify and 256 million entries of associated data such as artist and album names. Spotify, which hosts more than 100 million tracks, stated that the breach did not represent its full catalog.
“We have identified and deactivated the malicious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping,” said a Spotify spokesperson.
The Swedish service, which has more than 700 million subscribers worldwide, added that an investigation into unauthorised access identified a third party collected public metadata and used questionable tactics to circumvent DRM [digital rights management].
Group's Declared Goal and Concerns
Spotify does not think the music taken by Anna’s Archive has been made public yet. Anna’s Archive, which is known for providing links to pirated books, said in a blog it wanted to create a ‘historical repository’ for music.
The group claimed the audio files represented 99.6% of all music streamed to by its listeners and would be shared via ‘peer-to-peer networks’, a means of sharing large data files online.
“Naturally Spotify doesn’t have all the music in the world, but it’s a great start,” commented Anna’s Archive, which frames its mission as “preserving humanity’s knowledge and culture”.
Model Development and Copyright Debate
Ed Newton-Rex for protecting artists’ rights, said the leaked music would probably be utilized for training artificial intelligence systems.
“Training on pirated material is sadly widespread in the AI industry, so this stolen music is highly likely to be used instructing AI models,” he said.
The Anna’s Archive site makes references to LibGen, a vast online archive of pirated books that has reportedly been used by the parent company of Facebook to develop its AI models.
The co-founder of an artificial intelligence company posted on LinkedIn that members of the public could in principle “build their own personal free equivalent of the service”. The executive added it could also allow tech companies to “train on modern music at scale”.
Copyright has become a key issue between creatives, authors and creatives on one side and tech giants on the other.
Government Considerations and Responses
Across Britain, artists and writers have protested against a government proposal to allow AI companies utilize protected work without permission unless the owner signals. Virtually every respondent to a government call for evidence on the proposal has supported artists’ apprehensions.
A government minister for technology, research and development told parliament this month there was “no clear consensus” on the matter, adding that ministers would “use the time to get this right”. The administration has pledged to make policy proposals on AI and copyright by next year.
